Mica Angela Hendricks - Collaborating with a 4 year old

Hello everyone! Sorry I haven't been on here for a while. Summer has been very busy, I went away with my parents to Greece, and then shortly after went with a couple of friends to Thailand for 3 weeks, then almost as soon as I came back started an internship at a Financial PR company called Abchurch which has been going really well.

But I just had to blog about this latest craze which is sweeping the likes of Reddit, Tumblr and the general social media sphere. Mica Angela Hendrick, a graphic artist (check out her blog here), on the 27th August updated her blog with her latest collection of artworks to share with her followers. These were slightly different to previous works of hers because they are not entirely her own, she collaborated with her 4 year old daughter. 

Hendricks explains the collaboration delightfully, describing how she received a brand new, squeaky clean sketchbook in the post and she started sketching an old movie still (she claims are her favourite photos to draw). Her daughter came up to her and insisted on finishing the drawing. Hendricks thought to herself that she'd just let this drawing go, but by the time her daughter had finished she'd fallen in love with the finished piece. 

Hendricks draws the head from 20s, classical Hollywood movie stills, and then her daughter completes the drawing by adding the body and the background. The finished figure could be anything from a dinosaur to a stick insect. Hendricks and her daughter also both jointly add colour, her daughter being a little more free with her markers, and Hendricks a bit more tidy with acrylic paint. 

The pictures are quite lovely! Combining old traditional style with the young, free imagination!

www.busymockingbird.com

Picasso's Blue Period

In the spring of 1901, Picasso learnt about the suicide of friend and fellow painter Carlos Casagemas, and fell into deep depression. These blue paintings are a representation of Picasso's melancholy and sombre mood throughout the years 1901-4, his mood dominating his paintings. Picasso's Blue Period was followed in 1904 by his Rose Period, when his mood improved and this reflected in the pink, red tones of his paintings.

La Vie (1903)

Casagemas in his Coffin (1901)

Portrait of Jamie Sabartes (1901)

The Old Guitarist (1903)

The Rose Period (The Actor - 1901)

Kiss

Some beautiful watercolours such as the one above can be found on fhgalland.tumblr.com

Anthony Cudahy

Anthony Cudahy is an artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York City. He mostly paints portraits of individuals with a bold sense of colour and light, using thick strokes of the paint brush. For me, his work echoes features of Francis Bacon's paintings, not just with technique but also the eerie and unfamiliar subjects and emotion emitting from the painting, and also Lucian Freud, because of the fleshy feel of the paint. 

Francis Bacon - Self Portrait (1970)

Lucian Freud - Reflection (1985)

www.anthonycudahy.com

Confessions - Candy Chang

Candy Chang, a well established designer who has worked previously with the likes of the New York Times, began a project last year titled 'Confessions' on the Las Vegas Strip. Chang opened her project with the line 'What happenes in Vegas stays in Vegas, but what if we could share with full discretion?'. Inspired by Catholicism, the book 'Post Secret' and Shinto shrine prayer walls, Chang's project allows the public to confess their deepest secrets without having to reveal their identity and relate to others around them in a big and busy city, where you may often feel very alone. 

Visitors to the exhibition are invited to join the project, they can step in a booth commanding them to 'WRITE A CONFESSION', and once written, drop the confession in a letter box ready for display. Chang explains:

'Every passerby is another person full of longing, anxiety, fear, confusion, and wonder. We struggle with a lot of the same issues and there is great comfort in knowing you are not alone.'

The confessions range from 'I eat too much cheese', 'I still love her, 5 years and 2 girlfriends later' to 'I'm afraid I'm going to die alone'. Take a look at the pictures from the project.

The Project

A modern take on Vermeer

The original

Unfortunately, I'm not sure who has done this, but it is a comical take on Vermeer's classic, 'Girl with a Pearl Earring'. I'm sure many of you are familiar with this painting, and many of you are probably also familiar with the myspace camera shot. The artist here has combined the two, and the result is quite humorous. 

Melissa Vandenberg and Jasper Johns

Melissa Vandenberg's project 'Middeland' focuses on American identity, specifically in central US states which are pressured from the West, East and South culturally. 

Her work echoes that of American artist Jasper Johns who's most famous collection of works 'Flag' uses the same concept, challenging the concept of American identity through recreating the American flag. Johns was an openly homosexual man at a time where gay men were extremely discriminated against in America. He, an unconventional image of an American man, recreated the American flag, a conventional image representing American ideology.

Jasper Johns - 'Flag' (1954-5)

Melissa Vandenberg - Middleland project

www.melissavandenberg.com